


Underneath the Linden Tree

by Muccamukk



Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Birthday Presents, Canon Era, F/M, Operation Market Garden, Platonic Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26791786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/pseuds/Muccamukk
Summary: Harry's twenty-sixth birthday began on the march in Holland.
Relationships: Harry Welsh & Lewis Nixon & Richard Winters, Kitty Grogan/Harry Welsh
Comments: 11
Kudos: 32
Collections: Band of Boyfriends Kisstober Challenge 2020





	Underneath the Linden Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Band of Boyfriends Kisstober Challenge. Day Three: Birthday Kisses.
> 
> Almost a week late for Harry's actual birthday, but what can you do?
> 
> Title from Greg Brown's "If I Ever Do See You Again" which is also a mood for this story.

It'd started raining as Easy Company had left Nuenen, and hadn't stopped since. The whole battalion was soaked through, and none so much as Harry. He had water dripping off the back of his helmet and down his neck under the edge of his poncho, making his hands clammy and his boots squelch. They were supposed to be trucking east towards the Rhine, but usual Army efficiency had meant too many men, not enough trucks, and an all-fired hurry. The sun had presumably set some hours ago—at least the sky had changed from a dismal grey to an increasing gloom—and still they were on the march.

Harry hadn't realised how late it actually had gotten until Lewis drifted up the line and passed him a freshly lit cigarette.

"Thanks," Harry muttered around it, noticing that the end was still warm from Lewis' lips. "You got a nip? I'm out."

Lewis' flask found its way from the shade one poncho to another, cold fingers touching over the exchange. Harry shuffled the smoke to the corner of his lips so he could take a swig. The whiskey sent a flush of warmth through his body, perversely making his teeth chatter.

"Anything for the birthday boy," Lew drawled.

Harry looked over to see if he was serious, but couldn't make out anything past the cherry on his own cigarette. "Fuck me. Really?"

Lewis mimed checking his watch, though he didn't bother to pull back his poncho. "Ten minutes past midnight. You haven't even turned into a pumpkin."

Twenty-six, Harry thought, didn't feel a hell of a lot different than twenty-five. It certainly didn't feel any drier. "Didn't expect you to remember."

"Hard to forget that ruckus last year," Lewis commented, leading Harry to conclude that—as unlikely as it seemed—that Lewis must have drunk considerably less than he had. Harry's memory held nothing but a haze.

"Right," he said, but Lewis was already moving up the line, presumably to find Dick marching with first platoon. Strayer, of course, was driving.

At least a few people must have remembered that Aldbourne booze up, because when they trudged into a bivouac area a few miles down the road, Martin found Harry long enough to grumble, "Happy fucking birthday, Lieutenant," and Bill Gaurnere thumped him on the back, almost knocking him flat.

The rain had lightened to an aggressive drizzle and second platoon had scraped into the mud between the roots of apple trees when Dick found Harry and pulled him aside with a jerk of his head. For a moment, Harry thought Dick was going to lay into him for drinking on duty again, which had never seemed very fair.

Instead, Dick led him off to the tall trees marking the edge of a field, out of sight of the rest of the company.

"I hear it's your birthday," Dick said.

"That's what they keep telling me."

"Well, in that case." It was too dark to see anything besides the broadest movements, but Harry heard Dick's jacket rustle as he pulled something out of an inside pocket. For a moment, Harry imagined Dick passing him a flask like Nix just had and grinned into the dark. Instead, Dick pulled out something pale and square. "A Miss Catherine Grogan of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, sent this to me, said to give it to her fiancé on his birthday. Any idea where I might find him?"

If Dick took this game as far as holding the letter too high for Harry to reach, Harry was going to punch him in the stomach and take it away, but he didn't dodge as Harry snatched it from him and tucked it into his own jacket.

"She said something about him not being able to wait to read things," Dick added, suppressed laughter lifting his voice.

Dick could poke all the fun he liked; Harry didn't care. He'd gotten a letter from Kitty not long before they'd mobilised for Market Garden, but he'd already read that one so many times that folding and unfolding it had worn holes in the paper. By now, he mostly just looked at it to see her handwriting, as he had every word committed to memory. He hadn't expected to get another until the division settled into quarters, whenever that might be. "Thank you, Dick," he said. "I mean it."

"Of course," Dick said, then hesitated, humming in a way that wasn't quite clearing his throat. Harry could hear his boots creak as he shifted his weight. It occurred to Harry to wonder why they'd sided way off in a field to just give Harry a letter. Dick could have done that in the comfort of Harry's half-dug foxhole. "Kitty wanted me to give you something else, too."

"Oh yeah?" Harry was just thinking that a pair of knit socks would go a long way when Dick told him to close his eyes. It didn't make much difference in the dark anyway, but he did as he was asked.

"Now," Dick said, voice lowered a register, calm, soothing, persuasive, "I want you to picture in your mind that Kitty's here."

"Fuck that," Harry said with feeling. He didn't want Kitty anywhere near this shit.

Dick snorted. "All right," he amended, "I want you to picture in your mind being back in Pennsylvania. You were walking Kitty back to her place, and got caught in the rain. How does that sounds?"

Harry followed the spell of Dick's words to the vision. He could smell the late summer rain washing the dust out of the air, the bite of wet cement, Kitty's lavender soap. She had her hair down around her shoulders, curls frizzing in the rain, rain that made her cotton summer dress cling. "Oh yeah," he whispered.

"You've just gotten to her place, and she's standing in front of the door," Dick continued, and then he paused, and Harry felt Dick's hand on his his shoulder, too close to his neck to be the kind of reassuring pat one friend offered another. "You part your lips, and..."

And Dick kissed him. Just lightly, but full on the mouth. Harry responded instinctively, leaning into it, and opening his mouth, soft and urgent. The vision of Kitty on her doorstep pulling him forward, letting him ignore exactly who he was with.

For a moment, Dick let himself be kissed, let Harry run his tongue along cracked lips, tolerated the soft, needy noise Harry made as their stubble scraped together.

As Harry grabbed the front of Dick's jacket to pull him down, his knuckles rapped against the cold steel of a grenade. It was enough to break the spell.

Harry dropped away, stepping back back until his heel caught on a root and his back brushed against the tree trunk. He caught his breath, the drop back into war-torn Holland like plunge into spring run off. He couldn't seem to get his thoughts in order past a memory of how _nice_ Dick's mouth had felt, how gentle he'd been.

"You all right?" Dick asked, suddenly hesitant, as if it had just occurred to him that a company ought not to go around kissing his lieutenants.

Harry waved him off, remembered they couldn't see anything, and said, "Fine, fine," before lapsing again into cogitation. "Kitty asked _you_ to do that?" was what he finally asked.

"Well, I guess maybe she didn't trust Nix not to take things too far," Dick answered, the smile back in his voice.

"Okay, okay," Harry grumbled, not entirely sure he would have objected. Anything to be warm on a night like this. Still, he had the letter to read by light of his Zippo under a poncho, the memory of a kiss, even if one by proxy, a thump on the back. a nip of whiskey, an almost dry cigarette, and a handful of good wishes. Maybe that was warmth enough for now.

"Hey, Harry," Dick said as they turned back towards their men. "Happy birthday."


End file.
